Law Commons^™

The Missing Algorithm: Safeguarding Brady Against The Rise Of Trade Secrecy In Policing, Deborah Won

Michigan Law Review

Trade secrecy, a form of intellectual property protection, serves the important societal function of promoting innovation. But as police departments across the country increasingly rely on proprietary technologies like facial recognition and predictive policing tools, an uneasy tension between due process and trade secrecy has developed: to fulfill Brady’s constitutional promise of a fair trial, defendants must have access to the technologies accusing them, access that trade secrecy inhibits. Thus far, this tension is being resolved too far in favor of the trade secret holder—and at too great an expense to the defendant. The wrong balance has been struck.

This …

American Informant, Ramzi Kassem

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part of my childhood was spent in Baghdad, Iraq, during the rule of Saddam Hussein. At that time, the regime offered free and universal education and healthcare. Literacy rates in the country surpassed much of the Arabic-speaking world and, indeed, the Global South. As the celebrated Egyptian intellectual, Taha Hussein, famously put it: “Cairo writes; Beirut prints; and Baghdad reads.” Booksellers were everywhere in Baghdad. Its people read voraciously and passionately debated literature, poetry, and a range of other subjects.

But what struck me, even as a child, was the absence of sustained talk about politics in bookshops, markets, and …

Tightening The Ooda Loop: Police Militarization, Race, And Algorithmic Surveillance, Jeffrey L. Vagle

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article examines how military automated surveillance and intelligence systems and techniques, when used by civilian police departments to enhance predictive policing programs, have reinforced racial bias in policing. I will focus on two facets of this problem. First, I investigate the role played by advanced military technologies and methods within civilian police departments. These approaches have enabled a new focus on deterrence and crime prevention by creating a system of structural surveillance where decision support relies increasingly upon algorithms and automated data analysis tools and automates de facto penalization and containment based on race. Second, I will explore these …

No More Shortcuts: Protect Cell Site Location Data With A Warrant Requirement, Lauren E. Babst

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

In modern society, the cell phone has become a virtual extension of most Americans, managing all kinds of personal and business matters. Modern cell tower technology allows cell service providers to accumulate a wealth of individuals’ location information while they use their cell phones, and such data is available for law enforcement to obtain without a warrant. This is problematic under the Fourth Amendment, which protects reasonable expectations of privacy. Under the Katz two-prong test, (1) individuals have an actual, subjective expectation of privacy in their cell site location data, and (2) society is prepared to acknowledge that expectation as …

The Mosaic Theory Of The Fourth Amendment, Orin S. Kerr

Michigan Law Review

In the Supreme Court's recent decision on GPS surveillance, United States v. Jones, five justices authored or joined concurring opinions that applied a new approach to interpreting Fourth Amendment protection. Before Jones, Fourth Amendment decisions had always evaluated each step of an investigation individually. Jones introduced what we might call a "mosaic theory" of the Fourth Amendment, by which courts evaluate a collective sequence of government activity as an aggregated whole to consider whether the sequence amounts to a search. This Article considers the implications of a mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment. It explores the choices and puzzles that …

Signal Lost: Is A Gps Tracking System The Same As An Eyeball?, Eric Andrew Felleman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

On November 8th, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Jones. One of the primary issues in the case is whether law enforcement personnel violated Mr. Jones' Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by using a GPS tracking device to monitor the location of his car without a warrant. The 7th Circuit and the 9th Circuit have both recently held that use of GPS tracking is not a search under the Fourth Amendment.

The New Privacy, Paul M. Schwartz, William M. Treanor

Michigan Law Review

In 1964, as the welfare state emerged in full force in the United States, Charles Reich published The New Property, one of the most influential articles ever to appear in a law review. Reich argued that in order to protect individual autonomy in an "age of governmental largess," a new property right in governmental benefits had to be recognized. He called this form of property the "new property." In retrospect, Reich, rather than anticipating trends, was swimming against the tide of history. In the past forty years, formal claims to government benefits have become more tenuous rather than more secure. …

Reflecting On The Subject: A Critique Of The Social Influence Conception Of Deterrence, The Broken Windows Theory, And Order-Maintenance Policing New York Style, Bernard E. Harcourt

Michigan Law Review

In 1993, New York City began implementing the quality-of-life initiative, an order-maintenance policing strategy targeting minor misdemeanor offenses like turnstile jumping, aggressive panhandling, and public drinking. The policing initiative is premised on the broken windows theory of deterrence, namely the hypothesis that minor physical and social disorder, if left unattended in a neighborhood, causes serious crime. New York City's new policing strategy has met with overwhelming support in the press and among public officials, policymakers, sociologists, criminologists and political scientists. The media describe the "famous" Broken Windows essay as "the bible of policing" and "the blueprint for community policing." Order-maintenance …

Police Use Of Cctv Surveillance: Constitutional Implications And Proposed Regulations, Gary C. Robb

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article evaluates the constitutionality of CCTV "searches." Part I discusses the present uses being made of closed circuit technology and evaluates the merits of the CCTV surveillance system. The critical policy trade-off is the system's effectiveness in combatting crime against the resulting loss of privacy to individual citizens.

Part II considers the constitutional implications of CCTV use in terms of three major doctrines: the Fourth Amendment prohibition against "unreasonable searches and seizures"; the constitutional right of privacy; and the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association. This part briefly summarizes the state of the law concerning these constitutional …

Subsequent Use Of Electronic Surveillance Interceptions And The Plain View Doctrine: Fourth Amendment Limitations On The Omnibus Crime Control Act, Raymond R. Kepner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Despite the critical examination to which many sections of Title III have been subjected, section 2517(5) has received little serious scrutiny from either the courts or the commentators. This note will analyze the constitutionality of the section in terms of the standards which the Supreme Court has articulated, both with respect to the law of search and seizure generally and with respect to electronic surveillance. This examination will reveal that section 2517(5) cannot be sustained under the existing contours of fourth amendment interpretation.

The Legitimation Of Electronic Eavesdropping: The Politics Of "Law And Order", Herman Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

This Article will examine some constitutional considerations raised by wiretapping and eavesdropping in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, the probable extent of such activity, the limitations imposed upon it by title III and the ABA Standards, and the arguments for the "necessity" of electronic surveillance. Finally, a few jaundiced comments will be offered about legislative and judicial lawmaking in the field of criminal justice, particularly in a time of crisis.

Westin: Privacy And Freedom, Stanley K. Laughlin Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Privacy and Freedom by Alan F. Westin

The Criminal's Right Of Privacy

Michigan Law Review

The dissent of Mr. Justice Brandeis in the famed wire tapping case has been of especial interest to those who are acquainted with his article in the Harvard Law Review in 1890 on "The Right of Privacy." The law has witnessed few more fascinating developments than the engrafting of this latter concept into the formula of justice, few more conspicuous examples of creative juristic effort. Concerning it Dean Pound has said: "What may almost be called the classical example (of creative activity) is the paper on the Right of Privacy in which Mr. Justice Brandeis, then at the bar, was …